Fun in the Kitchen

As you all know by now, my partner and I love to be creative in the kitchen. The other day, we spent several hours putzing around and having fun.

My niece Katy had gotten a dozen mangos from her workplace and didn’t want them to go bad before she got around to eating them. So, I volunteered to dehydrate them for her! I must say, they turned out SO DELICIOUS! She now has a nice big jar of mango chunks to hand out to her kids when they feel snacky.

While I was chopping mangos, my partner dealt with the huge chunk of fat we had stored in the freezer. He chopped it up into more manageable chunks, rendered it down in the crock pot, strained it several times through a cheese cloth, and ended up with 6 jars of tallow we can use while cooking! FYI: Tallow is lighter than water, so you turn the jars upside down to allow the moisture to gather “on top” so it’s easier to remove before using.

For Christmas last year, I tried to make Vanilla Extract for all my family members but hadn’t given myself enough time for it to sit and infuse, so had to put that aside until now. Apparently, it takes a good 6 months (at the very least) and I had only given it 3 months. But finally, it was time to see how it turned out! I must say, the Mexican Vanilla Beans I used smelled SO GOOD! I am very happy with the results and have enough jars to give to everyone while keeping a couple for us here, as well. Then I tried something entirely new, and made Vanilla Paste out of the used beans. Basically, just you grind up the beans in a mixture of honey & vodka – which I have to say is a lot easier to say than it is to actually DO. But again, we ended up with enough jars to hand out to everyone and keep a few for ourselves. I’m told that Vanilla Paste can be used exactly like the extract but that it’s a bit more intense and has little bits of ground-up beans still in it.